Rubidium (not the standard) and water

[nixxon]

Another interesting video from crazy professor Martyn "periodicvideos" Poliakoff on stuff from the periodic table. Now, Rubidium (& H2O):

"We drop Rubidium into water - but with Phenolphthalein in the water to act as an indicator"

[grumpydoc]

That hairstyle is awesomely mad professor

[akcoder]

That hairstyle is awesomely mad professor

I've watched almost all the Periodic Videos. Professor Poliakoff does a fantastic job of explaining what is going on in the reaction. I love them!

-dan

[PedroDaGr8]

Ahh a topic close to my heart...being as I'm an inorganic synthetic chemist (specialty nanotechnology).




A reagent I work with regularly: diethyl zinc. It's a lovely little pyrophric compound. I've caused a good number of small fires with it. The best being when I set my boss's solvent waste bottle on fire (nice rolling blue doughnut of flame). Combine that with the cadmium powder, selenium reagents, nasty volatile sulfur compounds (why do I work in this lab again?) and you have have a lovely fun work place that never gets dull.

For those of you who enjoy chemical related stuff:

Things I Won't Work With

It's a subset of a chemistry blog by an organic medicinal chemist. His normal stuff isn't exactly my cup of tea, but the Things I Won't work with section is quite good for a laugh. There is no doubt the guy has an excellent sense of humor.

Two of my favorite quotes:

Hexanitro? Say what? I'd call for all the chemists who've ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio.

Hmm. Ranking my equipment in terms of its shrapneliferousness is not something that's ever occurred to me, I have to say. It's safe to assume that any procedure which involves considering which parts of the apparatus I'd prefer to have flying past me will not get much business in my lab

[babysitter]

Move to germany, ask Mr. Klapoetke in Munich. Regularly sets fire to and explodes stuff and assistents for science and fun.